Silurian (Doctor Who)

Silurians
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Silurian (Doctor Who)
Type of	Reptilian humanoids
Affiliated with	Earth Reptiles
Home Planet	Earth

First appearance Doctor Who and the Silurians

The name Silurians refers to a fictional race of reptile-like beings in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Silurians were Earth's first sentient species, were scientifically advanced, and lived during prehistoric times. At some point, the Moon approached close to Earth, threatening to cause geological upheaval, and the Silurians went into self-induced hibernation to survive. The name Silurian is a misnomer and in the original story was coined and used exclusively by humans. The misnomer arose because the race was identified as belonging to the Silurian period when first encountered in the Third Doctor serial Doctor Who and the Silurians. The Doctor, in a later serial, mentions that Silurians should more properly be called Eocenes. However, that term appears to be equally inaccurate. The Silurians are seen using dinosaurs as guard animals, and by the Eocene epoch, dinosaurs had long become extinct (although there is some merit to the suggestion that the primitive Silurians co-existed with dinosaurs and their domesticated versions survived with them). In some of the New Adventures novels, the term "Earth Reptile" is offered as the "modern" term for them. Whichever period the Silurians actually belong to, it is the first name applied to them that has stuck. Silurians are scaly, cold-blooded reptilian humanoids, with yellow eyes and oval mouths. They are also possessed of a red third eye that has various abilities, such as stunning or killing their opponents, signalling each other, or opening doors keyed to emanations from the third eye. The eye glows when it is active.

Appearances

Television

In their first appearance in Doctor Who and the Silurians, a group of Silurians were awakened from hibernation by the energy from a nearby nuclear power research centre. The Silurians then attempted reclaim the planet from humanity by releasing a deadly virus and attempting to disperse part of the Van Allen Belt. Both plans, however, were thwarted by the Doctor. Despite the Doctor's best efforts to broker a peaceful solution, the Silurian base was destroyed by UNIT on Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's order.

Another group of Silurians turned up in the 1984 serial, Warriors of the Deep, where they allied with their aquatic cousins, the Sea Devils, in a second attempt to reclaim Earth from the humans. That attempt took place in 2084. Curiously, on that occasion the creatures used the terms "Silurians" and "Sea Devils" to refer to themselves, despite these terms previously being purely human phrases.

Silurians are reintroduced to the series, following its cancellation and revival, in the 2010 two-parter "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood", in which Silurians are awoken in 2020 by an underground drilling operation. These Silurians lack the third eye of their 1970–1984 counterparts, and wear masks. Having misinterpreted the drilling as a deliberate attack, the Silurians take hostages. After a protracted conflict, the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) leaves behind two humans in the Silurian city to act as ambassadors to the human race when the Silurians re-awaken in a thousand years. Recurring character Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) is then introduced in "A Good Man Goes to War" (2011) as a Silurian detective in the Victorian era, who befriended the Doctor after a brief rampage on the London Underground. She lives with her human companion and lover Jenny Flint, and after "A Good Man," also employs the Sontaran Strax as her butler. The "Paternoster Gang," as the three are known, appear again in "The Snowmen" (2012), "The Crimson Horror" ,"The Name of the Doctor" (both 2013) and "Deep Breath " (2014). In "The Crimson Horror", Vastra claims to be from 65 million years ago.

Minor appearances:

• In "The Pandorica Opens", some Silurians appear in 102 AD alongside various alien enemies of the Doctor (including alien Daleks, Sontarans, Nestenes and other species) to imprison the Doctor in the mythical "Pandorica" in order, as they see it, to save the universe from him.
• Silurians are mentioned in the 2011 Torchwood: Miracle Day episode "The Blood Line"; Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) briefly muses that the Blessing (an ancient phenomenon beneath the Earth's surface) could be out of "Silurian mythology".
• A Silurian doctor named Malohkeh(played by Richard Hope) is seen attending to Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) in "The Wedding of River Song" in an aborted timeline.
• Hope plays another Silurian in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" (2012), seen briefly on a computer screen. The titular spaceship is a Silurian Ark searching for a new planet with a cargo of dinosaurs, the Silurian colony on board having been ejected from the ship by Solomon (David Bradley) prior to the episode. The ship is shown to have reached a planet named Siluria with its dinosaurs at the episode's conclusion.
• In "The Time of the Doctor" (2013), many Silurian Arks are seen among the ships gathered round Trenzalore.

Literature

Most Doctor Who novels try to clarify facts or expand on plot points from earlier episodes, often taking place "in between" episodes of the classic (1963–1989) series. Many of the original Silurian stories were novelised. Terrance Dicks' adaptation of Warriors of the Deep, for example, clarified that Silurian Ichtar was a survivor of the Doctor Who and the Silurians encounter. The novelisation of Doctor Who and the Silurians adds a prologue which features the beginning of the Silurian's hibernation; the novelisation avoids referring to the reptiles as Silurians. The 1996 novel The Scales of Injustice by Gary Russell was written to explain a previous encounter (to 2084) with the Doctor alluded to by the Silurians in Warriors of the Deep. In Seventh Doctor Virgin New Adventures novel Blood Heat (1993), Silurians of an alternate reality have conquered Earth after the Third Doctor was killed in their initial appearance. Silurians have also made many minor appearances in Virgin New Adventures series of novels. By the 26th century, the time of human archaeologist Bernice Summerfield's, the term "Earth Reptile" has become popularly used to describe Silurians following their peaceful integration with human society, such as in the novel Eternity Weeps (1997). A Silurian short story, "Cold War", also features in the anthology Short Trips: Steel Skies (2003). Additionally, while not appearing in The Wheel of Ice (2012), they are mentioned; apparently, the Arkive attempted to lure them to Saturn, but they went into hibernation before this is possible.

The Silurians also make a number of appearance in comic books. In the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip cycle "The Cybermen" (1994–1996), the cyborg race of Cybermen discover Silurians and Sea Devils living on their own planet Mondas during an unspecified time in the past; in Doctor Who, Mondas is Earth's former "twin planet". The strip also portrays Golgoth, a primordial humanoid reptile god-figure, who resembles a Sea Devil and may have some link to the Silurians. In the story arc "Final Genesis" (1993), an alternate universe is depicted wherein Silurians made peace with humanity and the two races live in harmony; the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce is renamed the 'United Races Intelligence Command'. Comic book story "Twilight of the Silurians" (1980) is set during the species' last days pre-hibernation, where Silurians observe captive "apes" (Eocene era humans) in their zoological research station. The comic book "City of Devils" (1983) features two Doctor Who companions, journalist Sarah Jane Smith (likeness' Elisabeth Sladen) and robot dog K-9 uncover a hidden city of Silurians (here, 'Eocenes') in an Egyptian archaeological dig, who seek peaceful coexistence with humans; this comic strip is based on the premise of failed television spin-off series K9 and Company.

Silurians also appear outside of Doctor Who-related media. A cave drawing of a Silurian and a Sea Devil appear in a cave on Mars in a work of steampunk fiction by D'Israeli, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game. Silurians and Sea Devils are referenced in the second volume of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen where they were connected to the creature from the Black Lagoon; League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is set in a fictional universe which reconciles the exploits of all fictional characters in one continuity.

Audio drama

Silurians also feature in the Big Finish Productions audio play Bloodtide (2001), in which the Sixth Doctor intervenes when Charles Darwin and the HMS Beagle expedition encounter a rogue Silurian group in the Galápagos Islands. The audio drama reveals that the leader of this group had been responsible for creating humanity's prehistoric ancestors via a forbidden breeding program, sabotaging the Silurian stasis chambers to escape punishment for his actions. In UNIT: The Coup (2004), the Silurians attempt to finally make peace with the humans, though the general public believes it to be a stunt involving men in rubber suits. In UNIT: The Wasting (2005), Silurians aid UNIT in finding a cure for a deadly plague. In the audio drama The Poison Seas (2003), from the Bernice Summerfield series of adventures, Summerfield travels to the planet Chosan sometime in the future to assist a colony of Earth Reptiles (Sea Devils) under threat there.

Appearances

• Doctor Who and the Silurians - January 31 - March 14, 1970
• Warriors of the Deep - January 5 - January 13, 1984
• The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood - ...

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